Chobani is busy these days. It's launching innovative products targeting new and existing consumers and eating occasions, including the first Greek yogurt pouches aimed at kids, and new flavors of its Greek Yogurt Oats blend line and Flip Creations mix-in products.

The long-time Greek-market leader is also turning to new marketing platforms and initiatives. It won't be running an ad in Super Bowl XLIX on Sunday, even though Chobani made its debut in Big Game commercials last year, opposite Dannon's Oikos brand—which also dropped out of Super Bowl advertising this time around after a two-year run.Continue reading...

As Wiredputs it, there's a revolution going on in Park City, Utah. That's where the Sundance Film Festival is putting virtual reality filmmaking in the spotlight as part of the New Frontier program, and the 3D projects being screened are making Hollywood sit up and take notice.

Digital artist Chris Milk is helping lead the charge, unveiling his new production company VRSE.works at Sundance with projects including Rome, a Chrome experiment with Google, and Vice News VR: Millions March, a short documentary with director Spike Jonze about last month's police brutality protests in New York that's being called the world's first VR news partnership.

Facebook-owned Oculus VR is also getting in the game, announcing a VR filmmaking initiative at Sundance called Story Studio that wll focus on developing animated/CGI films.Continue reading...

Water.org, the nonprofit cofounded by Matt Damon to help bring clean drinking water to developing nations across the globe, has made a very powerful partner: Anheuser Busch InBev.

One of the world’s largest brewer's brands, Stella Artois, has just launched its first global social action campaign, announcing it at the Sundance Film festival in partnership with Water.org.

Called Buy a Lady a Drink, the campaign asks consumers to purchase a $12 chalice with Stella’s name on it. There are 20,000 limited-edition chalices being sold through Amazon.com. More than just a stylish branded memento, however, the money can provide clean water to a family for five years, as Water.org notes in a press release. Continue reading...

Fighting through a plateauing of its growth as rival brands chip away at its pioneering position in Greek-style yogurt, Chobani keeps attempting to innovate through the slump with new products aimed at new day parts, and new marketing—now including a sprinkling of pixie dust.

The New York-based originator of the Greek-yogurt phenomenon has announced what it calls "a major portfolio expansion" with new products including Kids and Tots yogurt pouches, and a line of oatmeals and yogurt blending ancient grains.

The children's products feature Disney and Marvel characters ranging from Winnie the Pooh to Spider-Man on packaging.Continue reading...

The 2014 Sundance Film Festival is underway in Park City, Utah, and for those not attending the Robert Redford-founded program that has become a Hollywood media staple in person, YouTube is bringing the festival to a larger audience via the Sundance Film Festival YouTube channel.

As a presenting sponsor, YouTube’s Sundance presence includes YouTube On Main Street, hosting “must-see panels, happy hours, film receptions, screenings, talks, and DJ sets”; Live @ Sundance, a daily, 60-minute live show recapping the latest news hosted by YouTube stars Shira Lazar, Casey Neistat and Jimmy Conrad; and the YouTube Audience Award, which is presented to one of the 15 short films in competition that receives the most amount of views during the festival.

“In recent years we’ve turned to digital tools and technology to extend the festival experience to audiences who are not with us in Utah, and our initiatives this year make the festival more accessible than ever before,” said Keri Putnam, executive director of the Sundance Institute, according to the Wall Street Journal. The initiative, YouTube hopes, will attract more filmmakers—and ad dollars—to the platform as it tries to build up its short-film contentContinue reading...

The Sundance Film Festival has a solid history of showcasing interesting films that have gone on to be big hits, like Little Miss Sunshine, Reservoir Dogs, The Usual Suspects, Clerks, and Hoop Dreams.

But it's looking like Jobs— which stars Ashton Kutcher portraying Apple founder Steve Jobs' quest for glory — may not be one of them.

The film, which closed out the 2013 festival last week, received mixed reviews. The Guardian's Ed Gibbs gave it two out of five stars, calling it “an overly reverential and saccharine view” of Jobs, who died more than a year ago.Continue reading...

This year’s Sundance Film Festival ends Sunday — but for the powerful Creative Artists Agency, it may not be soon enough.

Amid a crowded slate of brand activities in Park City, Utah, CAA threw a party that the venerable film festival will not likely soon forget, featuring “lingerie-clad women pretending to snort prop cocaine, erotic dancers outfitted with sex toys and an "Alice in Wonderland" look-alike performing a simulated sex act on a man in a rabbit costume,” the Los Angeles Times reported.

"I said to my agent, 'Is this how you want to brand yourself? Pole dancers? Really?'" Oscar-nominated writer-director Naomi Foner, who was at the festival with the film "Very Good Girls," told the newspaper.Continue reading...